Internet use has become increasingly pervasive in recent years. Resources available on the Internet include electronic content and services. Internet resources may be accessed using a browser and an Internet service provider (ISP). An ISP includes a computer or group of computers that enable a physical connection between the Internet and the computer of a person seeking access to the Internet (“client computer”). A browser is a software tool installed on the client computer and designed to enable communications over the physical connection established by the ISP. In this manner, the browser and ISP may be used together to allow communications between the client computer and other computers that are connected to the Internet.
More specifically, a web browser is a program that enables requests to be made of web servers connected to the Internet using a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), an application layer protocol for exchanging files on the World Wide Web (www) that is defined in Internet standard RFC 2068. The browser displays web pages provided in response to these requests. A browser may also be used for displaying documents described using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
A single web page may be composed of several different files potentially of different data types (for example, text, graphics, images, virtual worlds, sounds, and movies). In addition, a web page can include links pointing to other resources available on the network (for example, web pages or individual files). Links can be displayed as text strings, as graphical images, or as combinations of the two. Each link has a network address or uniform resource locator (URL), which is essentially a pointer to network resources that is defined by Internet standard RFC 1738.
When a user clicks on or otherwise selects a displayed link, the browser automatically retrieves the web page (or other resource) corresponding to the link's associated URL and displays or executes that link. A computer operator may also access desired Internet resources using browser requests that typically include a domain name corresponding to one or more destination servers storing desired Internet resources, e.g., www.jcrew.com or www.dell.com. Browser requests may also include the URL of specific web pages stored on those destination servers, e.g., www.jcrew.com/homepage.html. In either case, a browser request may be satisfied by mapping a specified domain name or URL to a corresponding destination server.